Can social media be used as a hospital quality improvement tool?

Abstract

Many hospitals wish to improve their patients’ experience of care. In order to learn whether social media could be used as a tool to engage patients and to identify opportunities for hospital quality improvement (QI), we solicited patients’ narrative feedback on the Baystate Medical Center (BMC) Facebook page during a three-week period in 2014. Two investigators used directed qualitative content analysis to code comments and descriptive statistics to assess the frequency of selected codes and themes. We identified common themes, including: 1.) comments about staff (17/37 respondents, 45.9%); 2.) comments about specific departments (22/37, 59.5%); 3.) comments on technical aspects of care, including perceived errors and inattention to pain control (9/37, 24.3%); and 4.) comments describing the hospital physical plant, parking, and amenities (9/37, 24.3%). A small number (n=3) of patients repeatedly responded, accounting for 30% (45/148) of narratives. While patient feedback on social media could help to drive hospital QI efforts, any potential benefits must be weighed against the reputational risks, the lack of representativeness among respondents, and the volume of responses needed to identify areas of improvement.

Reporting of Patient Experience Data on Health Systems’ Websites and Commercial Physician-Rating Websites: Mixed-Methods Analysis

“…Although these improvements would provide patients with a more comprehensive picture of the experience of care with physicians within a given health system, it is also possible that health systems have conflicts of interest (specifically, an interest in increasing market share) that would discourage them from making these changes [11-12]. Another area that warrants further investigation—but about which we have limited information—is the possibility that the process of collecting and publishing the patient experience data has led physicians, practices, and even entire systems to initiate improvement activities based on patient comments [28,29].…”

Factors That Matter to Low-Income and Racial/Ethnic Minority Mothers When Choosing a Pediatric Practice: a Mixed Methods Analysis

“…Designing reporting systems that enable consumers to easily choose what data they view may increase utility and use of publicly reported quality data. 33–35 …”

Leveraging Social Media to Explore Black Women's Perspectives on HIV Pre-exposure Prophylaxis

“…In turn, researchers are beginning to use this virtual treasure trove of publicly available data to gain further understanding about individual perspectives on a diverse array of health-related topics as well as on factors that may influence certain health behaviors (Abramson, Keefe & Chou, 2015; Lagu et al, 2016; Struik & Baskerville, 2014). Because of the ubiquity of social media and the anonymity it often provides, examining comments about PrEP collected from naturally occurring social media exchanges represents an innovative approach to broadening and deepening our understanding of Black women’s perspectives on PrEP.…”